Jane Idrissi
From 3am he had dreamed he was drowning. Around daybreak, he wakes – to clanking and banging – and slips back to gasping and drowning again. A telephone rings, incessant. A truck, outside, squeaks. Pale light leaks through the curtains. Liam stirs in a sweat. He had forgotten he had a landline.
He sits in the kitchen, drinking tea. A fly lands on his face. He coughs so hard he whacks his head on the table and, hitting his fist against his chest, he flobs at the loaded sink. From the front of his boxers, he pulls a pouch of tobacco. With shaking hands in fingerless gloves, he tries to roll a fag.
He lies across the sofa with a bottle of wine. On his laptop, he watches The Waltons. At certain moments, he parrots the script, the way each character talks. When old Grandpa Walton’s face comes into view, he eases up to kiss the screen. Tipping the bottle to his mouth, he spills wine down his neck.
He screams shapes of billowing cloaks, spinnakers on wild seas. His raft, tiny, splintering in his grip and somewhere in this dream there is tolling. Until, smack, he is lying on the floor and the landline, the fucking landline, fucking landline. Nobody calls the fucking landline. He yells into the receiver, “LIAM BUCKING HUNT!”, kicks the handset across the room. From his hair, he pulls three fag buts. Through the upturned earpiece, he hears a female voice, singing to him, the birthday song; happy birthday dear Li-am, happy Big-birthday – The silver parcel on the doorstep is tinged blue in the dim light. He crouches down, brushes the ice away with his hands. Standing up, he reads the handwritten label: For Liam. He walks, barefoot, out onto the frosty pavement, peers up and down the road. Behind a playground on the opposite side of the street, a snow moon sits on a roof. A couple of kids run in circles, catching snowflakes with their tongues. Liam watches a while and, turning back, he doesn’t notice the old lady, sitting at her window in the upper floor flat.
He perches on the sofa eating beans from a can. Using his finger, he wipes up the juice. Outside, a dog barks, unabated. Scrunching the can, Liam looks up. With the fork, he taps his knee. On the windowsill, his gift appears luminous and, propped against a chair, his guitar; brass tuning keys, shining in the same pale light. In his lap, his mobile rings. The caller I.D. reads: Brother. He had forgotten he had a brother.
Mr Beagley is on the phone when Liam comes into the shop. He takes some wine from the shelf and, out of a crate on the floor, he grabs a mangy cauliflower. Feeling a rush of cold air on the back of his neck, he turns to see a woman. Stomping her boots on the mat, she shivers, spectacularly. With her dark curly hair and her bright red woollen scarf, she looks like a 50’s movie star; a young Elizabeth Taylor or may be Ava Gardener, Liam can’t decide. The instant he catches her brown, bright eyes, Liam turns away.
In the living room, he sits on the floor, legs outstretched, playing his guitar. He wears a blanket over his coat and, on his feet, bright red hand-knit socks. Next to him, his gift is opened, and the rest of the contents, still inside; a small glass-stoppered bottle of bubble bath, a tealight and some matches. Into a plastic Stone Roses mug, Liam pours some more red wine. He sings quietly, sweetly, wriggling his toes. Liam fills three binbags with all the junk he had piled in the bath. On his second trip to the communal bins, he slips, twists his ankle. Then, scrubbing the tub, he works his hands raw. When he turns the hot tap, the water runs cold, and he limps backwards and forwards, boiling kettle after kettle after pan. Tipping in the bubble bath, he sets the tealight on the edge. The perfume smells woody, familiar, like a notion, a feeling, he had forgotten he had. Liam peels off his clothes. Breathing in the steam, he stands, naked, bar his drenched red socks; blackened, now, at the heels.
On branches made of human limbs, Liam swings above The Falls. Until, smack, he is thrashing around in water, and someone is yelling his name. He clambers out of the bath and hobbles to his bedroom. Dripping wet, he pulls on a pair of jeans. Through the letterbox, someone shouts LIAM! I know you’re in there! and he drops to the floor. Hugging his knees to his chest, he waits in the dark. As, steadily, methodical, his brother kicks down the door.
* * *
losing our grip on purpose 